The present invention relates to an apparatus for distributing materials to a vertical type furnace, particularly to a blast furnace.
Hitherto, there have been proposed some material distributing apparatus for blast furnace using no bell. However, no material distributing apparatus having a rockable material distributing hopper has been put into practical use. An example of the apparatus having rockable material distributing hopper is shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 13722/1976, in which a gear box disposed in the furnace is supported by the casing of the furnace through a rocker shaft. A cylinder supporting the material distributing hopper is supported by the gear box through the medium of a shaft which extends in the direction perpendicular to the aforementioned rocker shaft. The shaft has a pinion which engages a ring gear disposed in the gear box and adapted to be driven by a drive shaft extended from the outside of the furnace. As the ring gear is rotatively driven by the drive shaft, the material distributing hopper rocks in one direction and, as the rocker shaft is rotated, the distributing hopper together with the gear box rocks in a direction perpendicular to the aforementioned rocking direction.
In this known system, since a two-shaft driving system is adopted to realize a desired pattern of material distribution into the furnace, a difficult problem is posed concerning the synchronous driving of the two shafts. Also, the driving method is the repetitional driving, i.e. rocking, so that a considerably large impact is given to the apparatus. Further, in order to sufficiently cool down the gear box in the furnace, it is necessary to circulate a cooling gas at a large rate, resulting in a raised running cost. Even by this cooling, the fear of thermal distortion of the gear box and, hence, the operation failure of the same cannot be eliminated completely. Also, a troublesome work is required for the protective maintenance of the gears.
It is, therefore, a major object of the invention to overcome the above-described problems of the prior art.
The above and other objects, as well as advantageous features of the invention will become clear from the following description of the preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.